Moving Force. 183 
would produce very unequal effects, the one 
being triple of the other according to the new 
doctrine; than which hardly any thing more 
absurd can be advanced in philosophy or 
mechanics.’’* 
This argument of Mr. Maclaurin has al- 
ways been considered as the most ingenious 
and the strongest objectiom that has been 
brought against the principle of the vis viva, 
But we have the following remarks upon it 
from Dr. Milner: “ I shall only just observe, 
that if M. Bernoulli expressly owns, that 
springs, interposed between. two bodies in a 
space, which is carried uniformly in the direc- 
tion in which tke springs act, will always 
generate equal forces in the bodies according 
to his own: definition of the term, he talks 
more inconsistently than I have observed him 
to do: on the contrary, if I could find that he 
has answered this famous argument. (which 
Dr. Jurin proposed. over again in the Philo- 
sophical Transactions, volume XLII. with a 
conditional promise of embracing the Leib- 
nitzian doctrine) by simply saying, that springs 
he considers as moving forces, or, when the 
bodies are equal, as accelerating forces ; and 
that their actions are equal, when in equal 
* Account of Sir Isaae Newton’s Discoveries, book 2. 
chaps 2. 
